Hyundai Hillcrest

The service at Hyundai Hillcrest is shocking. Last year October 2019 I purchased a car (i10 gsl motion 1.1) from Hyundai Hillcrest. The service was mediocre at best. However when I took possession of the vehicle the after sales service went out the window. After 21 days the temporary plate on the vehicle expired. I contacted the sales assistant (Shaffee) repeatedly to find out when I would be receiving my new number plates and licence discs to which the response was that they would collect the licensing in the next few days. I continued to call every few days to see if they had arrived as yet and was repeatedly told the same thing. After about 3 months I had had enough and went in to see the Shaffee and voiced my dissatisfaction rather loudly. All of a sudden i was told that because my licensing had taken so long the car needed to go for the road worthy test again before i could get the licensing. It was arranged that the car would be collected the following day at my place of work and take for road worthy test. When the following day arrived i called to find out what time he would be arriving to collect the car, i was told he would be there in a hour, this continued the whole day and the car was not collected. I called again the following day and arranged that the car would be collected the following day and a time of collection was 9am. Once again when 9am arrived the car still had not been collected. I called enquire about the whereabouts I was assured he would be there in a hour. Eventually at 11am the car was collect. I had informed the Shaffee that I finish work at 4pm and the building is locked at 4:30pm as it is not situated in a very safe area... so I needed my car back on time. In the end I had sat waiting outside a locked building till 5:30pm for my car. But still after all this I had to wait a additional month to get the license plates and disks for my car.

However over and above the license plate delays I was also trying to get the spare key for car as it was a stipulation from my insurance company that I needed a spare key. I called repeatedly and was told the spare key was at the Pietermaritzberg branch and arrangements were made to collect the key. Unfortunaly we then went into Lockdown and I could not follow up until Hyundai re-opened. In may 2020 I went in and saw the sales assistant and he informed me the key would be collected and delivered to me. I waited a month and went in again to see if the key was available which it was not... this continued till August. When I went in to enquire again I was informed that the Shaffee no longer worked for the Hillcrest branch and nobody was informed that I was looking for my spare key. I explained everything again and they contacted Shaffee verify that I was looking for the spare key. At the same time I was approached by another sales assistant (John) told me about a special deal they had on at the moment. The deal was that I could trade my car in for a upgrade (grand i10 1.2 fluid) with +-15000km for the same price I was paying for the current car. I was sceptical but was interested in see if it was possible. He checked on my record and showed me the calculations, although the price would be affected slightly. I decided to go for the deal with a few conditions. I wanted to have the tyres from my i10 switched with the grand i10 tires as they were bought in November and with the lockdown were practically brand new. I also enquired about the petrol as I had a full take of petrol in the car. John agreed that the tyres could be swapped and that he would ensure the new car would have a full take of petrol. John started the ball rolling. Over the period of a week of back and forth conversations John kept mentioning different colour grand i10's to me and I kept asking about mileage on each of them. Most of these cars were over 40 000km on the clock and I kept insisting that I was not taking a car with higher mileage then my current car (29 184km) and that the car I was told would get would have 15000km. He finally mention a silver car, however it was more expensive and my monthly installments would go up. I was furious as I had already signed up with new insurance and cancelled my old insurance, so I asked if he had any other options in which he told me there was a white grand i10 available. So I agreed I would take the white car! Over this period of back and forth I was contacted by the financial officer Warren who request bank statements and other documentation from me which I provided. On monday the 17 August John contacted me a requested that I come to Hyundai and sign the contract at 2pm however I would not receive the car till the following day because it needed to go for road worthy test. I informed John that I would not sign the contract until I had seen the car so it was arranged that i would go in in the morning to look at the car and then return at 2pm if I was satisfied with the car, which I did. When I arrived I was shown the car. I pointed out a few chips in my inspection of the car and John said he would see that they were repaired. I also noted small details like the old licence disc on the windscreen was peeling and a old mop string stuck to the back tire - stupid little things really - but the one thing I did not look at was the mileage on the car because I felt I had myself very clear on the subject. Anyway I was happy with the looks of the car so I agreed to come back later to sign the contract. John informed me that car would be collected and taken for road worthy. When I returned at 2pm I noticed that the car I had looked at that morning was still on the showroom floor. I was confused and excided because I thought the car was back which would mean I could get the car after I signed the contract. I asked John about it and pointed the car out to him. He insisted that the car I was pointing out was not my soon to be car and that the car I was pointing out was a car they took out the back storage to fill the gap my car had left when they took it from the floor. I laughed and still pointed out how the car had the exact same chip in the back bumper and he insisted it was not so I left it at that but still had a uneasy feeling. When I went in to see Warren to sign the contact I was hesitant and informed Warren that I was uneasy about signing the contact and why. Warren told me to talk to John about it directly. After signing the contract I went to look more closely at the car I was sure was mine and I noticed that it was the exact same car I had seen that morning. When John approached me I was once again furious. I showed him the 2 chips I had pointed out as well as the peeling licence disc and the mop string on the tyre. He quickly started making excuses that the wrong car has been taken by mistake. I made a point of taking a photo of the VIN number and informed him that this is the car I signed for and this was the car I would be collecting. The following day when I went to collect the car. I arrived a little earlier then my appointed time scheduled and o arrival John came running towards me with a problem. Apparently he realized that the tyres we agreed to swap were likely not the same size and he needed to check. I was confused because surely he should know what size the tyres were. Anyway on checking he noticed that the tyres were different sizes and that they could not be swap. I was upset again because it took I'm a week to figure this problem out and I reluctantly agreed to keep the tyres that were currently on the car. I was then asked to re-sign the contract as there was a problem on the paperwork from the bank. So I sign the new paperwork while John got the car ready for collection. Once I was done I met John at the car and as he insisted on taking photos of me with the car which I told him I did was not happy about as I dont like having my photo taken. I rhen asked him to assist me with connecting the car radio to my cellphones blue tooth and ask him to show me how the whole touch screen radio worked. We chatted about the car and he explained that if there was any problems within the first 1000km. I asked when the car would need its next service at the same time before he answered me I turned the key in the ignition to show the mileage reading. To my absolute horror the mileage reading I was seeing sent in a shocked silence before I confronted John. The mileage on the car which I constantly insisted during this whole process be 15000km was in actual fact 34000km. To say I lost my temper would be a understatement. John tried to calm me down by promising he would speak to management to arrange compensation for his continual errors and lies. I wanted to know what compensation and he told me it would be something for the car. As there was nothing further I could say and do I accepted this. I then asked him about the fuel and temporary licence paper for the car. He explained that the purchase order for the petrol was not processed yet and asked if I could come back the following day. He also explained that the logbook for temporary plates was still not back and I could use the car with the number plate that currently on the car but asked that I come back the following day so these could be sorted out which I agreed. When I got home I noticed that there was only one number plate on the car and it was on the front. So I moved the plate to the back of the car as I know that if I would be fined if caught driving without a number plate on the back. I also noticed that the car had no floor mats so I contact John to inform him that I wanted mats for the car and that there was only one number plate. He informed me that he had the other number ate and that he would would give it to me the next day. I asked him again about the temporary plate and he told me I would not be getting temporary plate and that I was to continue using the car with the current plates. I was a little concerned so I contacted the traffic department to find out if this was legal. It was explained that the current plates should have been changed to dealership plates but they could not look on the NATIS system as it was currently down. The next day I went back to Hyundai Hillcrest to collect the mats and the fuel only to find out that John was not available. Another sales assistant gave me a plastic bag with mats and then informed me he would take the car to put the petrol in. Irritated I handed the mats back to him and told him he could put do John's job and put the mats in the car. I then left him to everything out. When he returned he put the missing license plate on the car and I got ready to get out of there before I lost my temper again about the poor service I was getting. When leaving I noticed that I only had a half a tank of petrol but decided that it was better than nothing and left. On Monday 21 September, I contacted John with regards to the licensing of my car. He told me that he still had not received the licensing but would find out and call me back before the end of the day, which never happened. The following day I called again and was informed the car dealerships were only allowed registering 4 cars a day and that there was a backlog but he would find out again when my registration would be ready and get back to shortly to which I mentioned to John I was planning a trip to Johannesburg and needed my new registration number so I could sort out my e-tag. Wendnesday I phone again to find John was not at work. Friday the 25 September 36 days after receiving the car I once again drove to Hyundai Hillcrest to find out why i had not hear back. In arrival John was on the phone so I waited. After about 15 minutes of waiting john motion to me and informed me was trying to get hold of the person responsible for the licences. So i continued to wait. After about another 20 minutes of John being on the phone I had enough as I could see he was not talking to anybody and was supposedly on hold I asked asked about the compensation that was promised, John looked confused as he had no clue what I was talking about so I clearly reminded him about the lies and the mileage. He then told me he need to discuss it with management. Angry yet again I turned and let without another word, however when i got back to my car I was even more angry so I went back and demanded to see the Manager. The manager was called by the name of Clinton Munsami I related to him everything that transpired as I mention above. He told me he would get back to me and he would phone me on Monday after discussing the matter with Hyundai head office. He then gave me his telephone number stamped on a s**** piece of paper when I told him I was sceptical about them actually phoning me back. True to my word I did not receive a phone call on Monday. I once again had to phone on Tuesday 29th, Clinton still had no answers for me. He informed me that he spoke to Warren about the situation and he could not figure out what my problem was as I signed the contact. Let it be known that what I said does not need to be repeated, so I have decided to take the matter further and in doing so have written this post on Hello Peter so other people can be aware of the extremely poor service that is taking place a Hyundai Hillcrest. Also so people are aware that some of the sales assistants have a tendency to lie. Hyundai is a great car but the service is shocking! I will not be using them again in the future!